We’re in the Dead Zone of the annual box office. The summer hits are lingering and whatever’s new, no one wants to see.
“The Invitation” is a panned horror film from Sony that will make far less than $10 million this weekend. It will still be number 1, but will set a record low for films that opened at the top of the box office. Sad!
Even sadder is the MGM-United Artists Release of George Miller’s new film. “Three Thousand Years of Longing” isn’t even reporting Friday numbers because they were so embarrassing.
This was a Cannes film with Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba but UAR, which has the worst publicity department in 120 countries, just dumped it out the window. It’s in a lot of theaters but no one’s going to see it consequently. This follows the UAR strategy of blowing movie after movie from “Respect” to “Licorice Pizza” to “Flag Day” to “Cyrano.” The list is long. If UAR hadn’t been handed the last James Bond movie on a platter, they’d be dead. As it is, they screwed that up, too, with just $160 million total. The last Daniel Craig as 007 movie should have done $200 million.
